North Cornwall Day 7 - St Ives to St Just

Monday 7th July 2014

St Ives, Cape Cornwall & St Just

After the relatively easy day yesterday - this one was a real brute ! It was some of the hardest walking we had ever encountered - the path around Port Isaac was tough, but I think this was harder. As we included Cape Cornwall in this leg before swinging back round to St Just, we really did push it. The leg was however one of the most stunning, the path hugs the contours of the coastline, sending you on an endless series of ups and downs. The wildlife was fascinating with seals and although we didn't see any basking sharks apparently they are often spotted. We did see a bird of prey scoop up an adder and land in front of us - it stared at us for a while, whilst getting a better grip on its meal, and then off it flew.

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Distance: 20.8 miles

Duration: 9:15 hours

Ascent: 4402 ft

Difficulty: Very Very Hard

Accompanied By: Davy

Weather: Hot & Sunny

3D outline of route

Parking

Goodbye St Ives

The thing that we found about the North Cornwall Coastal Path was that where the was a road nearby, the paths would be well walked and clear. But lots of coastline was remote and away from the day trippers and easy access folk - so often the bracken and coastal shrubs grew such that you could only just get through, in many places you were walking through a tunnel of overgrowth. The heat would build up so you were glad to get out into the clear sea air. This is a typical (many were worse) photo of the coastal path

Pen Enys Point

Seal spotting - Can you spot this one ?

There's more seals down there but my photographic skills are limited !

The Carracks

Mussel Point

Zennor Head in the distance

Gurnards Head

Porthmoina Cove

Whirl Pool ! I've got a tumble drier named after this place

Down the coastline to Greeb Point

The Enys

Remains of Levant mine

Crown Mine. Our hard day got harder as some killer ups and downs in the baking late afternoon sun took their toll on our tiring limbs as we rounded Cape Cornwall. We renamed one as the 'Valley of Despair' when we reached it - I was chatting to my wife on my mobile when I heard Davy let out a mouthful of expletives. This was soon followed by my .... "Oh **** !!". Another massive up and down to do. We reached St Just tired and exhausted - although we knew that tomorrow was an easy glory walk to Lands End and the finish, so spirts were still surprisingly high. That was one of our hardest days ever.

A pub crawl round the centre of St Just followed - slightly more subdued than usual. Probably because of this, we missed out one of the pubs (The Star). Only to find out afterwards that some friends of ours from The Golden Smog (our home pub) were on a cliff climbing holiday in Zennor and were actually in there that very night !! If only we knew - Sorry 'Mike the Bike' !